*I would like to thank Michel ter Hark, Lodi Nauta and James Connelly, for their critical reading of earlier versions of this paper and for their comments. Gilbert Ryle and R. G. Collingwood are no...

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article discute l'idée que la philosophie tardive de Collingwood soit d'orientation historiciste et relativiste. Je soutiens que cette accusation de relativisme historique est basée sur deux erreurs, l'une exégétique et l'autre philosophique. L'erreur exégétique est le résultat de l'hypothèse d'une prétendue «conversion radicale». L'erreur philosophique repose sur la conception selon laquelle il n'y a pas de différences substantielles entre le projet d'une métaphysique descriptive et le projet de la sociologie de la connaissance. L'article essaie de saper à la (...) base l'accusation de relativisme en contestant ces deux préjugés. (shrink)

This paper explores and defends a form of transcendental argument that is neither bold in its attempt to answer the sceptic, as ambitious transcendental strategies, nor epistemically humble, as modest transcendental strategies. While ambitious transcendental strategies seek to meet the sceptical challenge, and modest transcendental strategies accept the validity of the challenge but retreat to a position of epistemic humility, this form of transcendental argument denies the assumption that undergirds the challenge, namely that truth and falsity may be legitimately predicated (...) of the conditions of knowledge. As a result, although this form of transcendental argument is not truth-directed, it is not vulnerable to a charge that is often levelled against modest transcendental arguments, namely that they amount to the adoption of a strategy of sophisticated capitulation. This form of transcendental argument, which is implicit in Collingwood’s conception of philosophy as the search for absolut... (shrink)